We Turn Ideas Into Brands
Stellen Design is a boutique graphic design and branding agency based in Los Angeles, CA. We do contract design and branding work for many startups and small to midsize businesses. And not to name names, but a few corporate companies like California Pizza Kitchen.
Your company’s brand is the personification of the big vision inside your mind. It’s your best, 24/7 salesperson. It’s a unifying force that promotes pride within your organization and makes your customers feel understood. In short, your brand is a boss. Translating your sales pitch into a visual language and tone that resonates with your ideal customers is easier said than done. That’s why our branding agency, Stellen Design exists. We take the burden of interpreting your ideas off your hands. Our branding agency specializes in taking a company’s authentic story and shaping it into a visual presence through our practical and thoughtful design approach. If you are looking for a small and mighty branding agency that will handle your branding a with love, excitement, and integrity... let's talk!
Brands We Have Partnered With ...
Our Process is Pragmatic
We Listen
We listen to your goals, 1 year, 5 year, and 10 year, we want to know them all. We want to know where you started, why you started, and what makes you tick. In our branding agency, we want to know what current issues you are facing and what you see for your company. We even want to know what kind of dog you have.
We Plan
We are not kidding about being pragmatic. Jordis Small (our branding agency creative director) is a type A planner. We start all our brand, logo, and website projects with a detailed discovery process and a plan of action keeping us both on our path to true North. After all, if you don’t know where you are going, you are never going to get there?
We Wow
We don't mean to sound full of ourselves, but if all goes according to plan you should say "wow"! Our clients have said, "that is what I had in my head but I didn't know how to say it". No, we are not mind readers...but our branding agency's process makes us pretty close.
A Stellen Design Bonus
Creative Director, Jordis Small, personally handles ALL branding agency projects. Unlike big agencies, you don't need to worry about getting shuttled off to a Jr. designer while paying big brand agency rates. You get Jordis along with her practical design philosophy that she prides herself on and her lean and mean team. While we love to make things look beautiful, if it doesn't serve its purpose, it's useless. We make sure all our deliverables look the part and can do the work!
Ways to Work With Us
We work with driven entrepreneurs and growth focused businesses on a per project basis for brand design and web design. We also offer retainer packages where we become your company's personal design department. That is right... Stellen Design becomes your branding agency design team constantly working on growing and nurturing your brand. If you are still in the beginning stages of building your business we have a brand workshop where we work closely with you to outline your brand and get you started. Workshops are done live while we work together. Got questions?? Let's chat!
What is Brand?
Brand is like the brain of your business or organization. A lot of people think it’s a logo, or font choices, or colors… but really it’s SO much more than that. Once you know your brand and how your brand thinks, talks, and acts all the other assets, like the logo, fall into place. Brand will give you the boost of confidence you need to succeed.
What does Stellen mean?
mir vorstellen is the German word for imagine
erstellen is the German word for create
Imagine + Create = Stellen
We Are Small and Mighty.
We are a virtual team of three women, all working remote from 3 different parts of the country. Our brand agency has the ability to scale as needed with great resources for web development, animation, and added design support giving you the perfectly curated team for your project.
We Believe
- Design should be good, clean, and fun.
- In doing good work for good people.
- If you do it right, it will last.
- When in doubt, keep simple, less is always more.
We Are
- Dedicated to top quality design and branding.
- Insanely passionate about simple logo marks.
- California vibes.
- About as practical as a fanny pack.
We Are Not
- A pretentious branding agency.
- White labeling overseas designers.
- Going for volume of work. Quality over quantity.
- Your social media person.
Creative Director
Jordis Small is a wife, mother, designer and lifelong creative. She got her start in Fashion attending FIDM in Los Angeles and working as a fashion designer. After working in the industry, she found it was not as creative as she thought it would be and knew she had to pivot. She then began working as a graphic designer in the action sports industry and fell in love with it. Working in action sports brought together her love of adventure with creativity.
She worked as an in house designer for several years before taking a leap of faith and opening her own branding agency. Her background in fashion gives her an upper hand when it comes to brand development and identity design.
She takes pride in the work we produce and personally oversees all creative direction as well as takes on all branding agency projects herself. Logo and brand design projects are what makes her tick.
As a California native she loves snowboarding, riding dirt bikes, running at the beach, and being outside. She loves to travel and experience new things with her family.
She has a passion for design and is absolutely in love with her job as she thrives on creativity. She says “there is no greater feeling than helping someone see their vision come to fruition.” She also lives by the words of another designer, Aaron Draplin, "do good work for good people".
Why I Love Brand Design
I don't think any child dreams of being a brand designer or even knows what that means... but looking back at my childhood there are SO many clues to my love of brand and need to be a designer!
Why is the Client/Designer Relationship Important?
The client / designer relationship is a very special one! My clients need to feel comfortable with me... I am building their brand and it's a big deal. It's very important that they trust me and feel open to provide proper feedback. It's a lot like dating and not every client is for every designer and vise versa.
Branding Articles
Let’s Make a Mood Board
How to make a mood board Once you have read through and outlined all the fun points in my article on where and how to start building a brand, you can start on the creative stuff which always starts with building a mood board! You…
4 Steps in Creating a Brand
Now, I am sure every brand designer has different steps they take in creating a brand but I can guarantee that 99% will look something like my 4 Steps in creating a brand! If you are still a little unsure of what a brand…
Where and how do you start building a brand?
Where and how do you start building a brand? So you have a business idea but you are not sure where or how to start building a brand? First off, let’s get clear on what a brand is! Give this article a read. And of…
